How to Return a Channel Pear to Your Roku
If you’ve cut your cord to save money but missed your favorite cable channels, Channel Pear is here to help. The cloud streaming app offers live TV coverage covering everything from MSNBC and CNN to ESPN and Cartoon Network, although it’s limited to five channels if you’re not willing to pay for the service .
Roku recently removed Channel Pear from its devices last month, citing the app’s questionable legality. But if you’re not ready to stop using the service, there are several different ways to get it back up and running on your Roku at home.
Watch Pear’s Roku channel with an M3u playlist
Channel Pear has its own easy workaround to restore and launch the app on your Roku. All you have to do is download a separate app called M3u Playlist Player and then watch your live stream through it.
The first thing you need to do is log into your Roku account on an internet browser. Then follow this link to download M3u Playlist Player and select Install. To launch a new app, grab your Roku remote (or app on your phone) and go to Settings and then System Update to check for updates. After the update, the channel should appear on your Roku.
All that remains is to sync Channel Pear playlists with the M3u playlist player. To do this, go to your online library , click pair to open the drop-down menu, and select Roku. You will see a unique URL that you need to select and copy to your phone.
Next, launch the M3u playlist player on your Roku and click on New Playlist. Give your playlist a name (whatever you want) and click Next. Then, using the Roku app on your smartphone, copy the custom library URL into the text box. Restart M3u Playlist Player and you should be fine.
I tried it myself and the whole process was quick and easy. Even if this is your first time using Channel Pear, it shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes to set up and start streaming on Roku.
Use Plex to watch Channel Pear on your Roku
If you’re a Plex fan, there is another way to get Channel Pear back on your Roku. You will also need a Windows computer to use this method, which is described in The Streaming Advisor .
Before we start, you need to set up a free Plex account (if you haven’t already), install Plex Media Server, anddownload WinRAR . Then download Channel Pear for Plex and open the zip file with WinRAR.
From there, you will need to extract the Channel Pear. Then change the file type by renaming it from “channelpear.bundle-master” to “channelpear.bundle” before installing it as a Plex plugin to complete the process.
I don’t have a computer at home, so I haven’t been able to try this method myself, but it seems pretty simple. If you’re having trouble, Streaming Advisor has a step-by-step guide with detailed images to guide you through the process.